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Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

kathmandupost.com

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Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#111

Post by hermitcrab »

nonameiguess wrote: post #100
kjkjadksj wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went from sea level to 11k feet in the same day many times before. I would say the altitude effect is there but not as much as you might expect. A little quicker to be out of breath a little longer to recover it. Not sure what it is like at higher elevations or greater daily altitude delta.

I guess fitness makes a difference from what these other comments are saying. My ex-wife and I lived in Long Beach (which is obviously sea level) when we were in ROTC and pretty regularly took day trips out to San Gogornio and walked to the summit in about five hours, which is ~11,500ft. Not once did that have any noticeable effect, but we were both pretty serious runners back in the day trying to become Army officer…

>I guess fitness makes a difference

Not really. Altitude sickness seems quite random in who it effects worst. I trekked to the top of Mera Peak (~21,000 ft) many years ago. 3 of the fittest people in our party got altitude sickness and didn't make it to the peak.

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#112

Post by hermitcrab »

paxys wrote: post #16
bombcar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much a chopper ride would cost at "reasonable rates" (e.g, not the air ambulance but just a chopper).

I'm assuming less than the average ambulance ride in the USA

Yes, but it might be in some ancient Russian helicopter of unknown provenance.

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#113

Post by tt24 »

expedition32 wrote: post #61
datadrivenangel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nepal is a low income and high corruption country, where the government and formal business structures are unstable enough that 'tipping' becomes common even for government investigators... It's basically a way for everyone to get more tourists dollars, which is one of Nepals primary exports.

Scamming bored rich people is one of the more victimless crimes.

How can it possibly be defined as victimless

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#115

Post by pkoiralap »

While it is true that guides and business owners are always looking for opportunities to earn extra cash, the reporting is a tiny bit off here.

Start of AMS like symptoms can easily be mistaken for walking fatigue and dehydration. It is easier to identify if you are at rest, but during the trek that is seldom the case. So when you actually start realizing something is wrong, you already are at an elevated risk. The only thing that works in these cases is to descend and as fast as possible at that.

Considering the fact that AMS will absolutely and a 100% kill you if you play around with it, guides presenting trekkers with an option of helicopter rescue is not that bad, at least if you look at the worst that can happen.

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#116

Post by jltsiren »

nonameiguess wrote: post #100
kjkjadksj wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went from sea level to 11k feet in the same day many times before. I would say the altitude effect is there but not as much as you might expect. A little quicker to be out of breath a little longer to recover it. Not sure what it is like at higher elevations or greater daily altitude delta.

I guess fitness makes a difference from what these other comments are saying. My ex-wife and I lived in Long Beach (which is obviously sea level) when we were in ROTC and pretty regularly took day trips out to San Gogornio and walked to the summit in about five hours, which is ~11,500ft. Not once did that have any noticeable effect, but we were both pretty serious runners back in the day trying to become Army officer…

If anything, fitness makes you more susceptible to altitude sickness. It's not an inherent effect, but rather your habits driving you to do things you shouldn't. You are supposed to take things lazy and slow when acclimatizing to high altitude. But if you're fit, you may be used to moving too fast and pushing yourself too hard. You may not recover from exertion as quickly as you expect, and you may end up climbing higher every day than you should.

Altitude sickness typically starts after 12–24 hours. If you climb high and come back down in the same day, there is usually not enough time for the symptoms to start. And 11,500ft is not that high altitude. People routinely fly to Cuzco, La Paz, Lhasa, and Leh from sea level, and most of them suffer no serious ill effects.

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#117

Post by School-Cotton »

tristor wrote: post #53
shadow28 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 12-15K feet just isn’t that high in the scheme of things. Many peaks in the western US are in that range or more. The highest peak in the contiguous United States is Mt. Whitney at ~14.5k feet

I think you mean continental United States, as Alaska and Hawaii are excluded, where-as Alaska is contiguous with the United States, but requires crossing through parts of Canada to reach by land. That said, yes Whitney is the highest in the continental US, and McKinley in Alaska is the highest in the US (and contiguous US) and is also the tallest in the world from base to peak and the third most prominent peak in th…

That’s like saying the US is contiguous with Japan, you just have to cross through parts of the Pacific Ocean to get there. Contiguous precisely means you don’t have to cross anything else to get there, it is connected.

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#118

Post by cwmoore »

coldtea wrote: post #66
shadow28 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exactly the other way around actually, continental US would include Alaska since it's still on the North American continent whereas contiguous US excludes both Hawaii and Alaska. Contiguous US refers to the lower 48 states.

Continental "could" include Alaska (it's even in the official U.S. Board on Geographic Names definition), but in practice when "continental US" are casually mentioned, it's rarely implied as included. Most use it as interchangeable with contiguous.

Contiguous states is the correct term.

“Continental” would be in Europe.

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#119

Post by School-Cotton »

tt24 wrote: post #113
expedition32 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scamming bored rich people is one of the more victimless crimes.

How can it possibly be defined as victimless

In my experience people use “victimless” to mean “the victims are people I lack sympathy for”.

Re: Inside Nepal's Fake Rescue Racket

#120

Post by streetfighter64 »

scorpionfeet wrote: post #95
698969 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Nepal, my parents always warned me before eating at some rest stops because they said the food was doctored with baking soda to make you feel fuller, guess it was true after all and not just an urban legend heh.

[flagged]

"You" don't take antacid after eating unless "you" have problems with your stomach acid or something. Neutralizing your stomach acid isn't generally a smart thing to do, because it's acidic for a reason (digesting food). Some people even recommend not drinking to much water with your meals because it dilutes your stomach acid, though that might be overly cautious. Whether adding baking soda to food makes you feel fuller I wouldn't know, but it certainly won't make you "feel better", unless you have some medical condition.
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